Academic Adds Fun into Accounting

Students during the Knight’s Tour Game.

Games are the last thing one expects to find in an Accounting class, unless the lecturer is Dr Msizi Mkhize. The School of Accounting, Economics and Finance academic has once again found a way to spice up Accounting by creating an educational game for his Accounting students.

The game helps students in analysing and interpreting financial statements.

‘As an Accounting 1 lecturer and Module Co-Ordinator, I wanted to provide something that would be helpful to students in understanding the financial statements analysis, he explained.’

The Knight’s Tour Game consists of a number of questions relating to financial statements where students are divided into teams with the leader being elected as a “financial manager” who asks his/her teammates the questions, verifies them and gives them points for each correct answer. At the end of the session, the scores are tallied up and the team with the highest scores wins the game.

The students participated in the game during their tutorial sessions. The participants were skeptical at first but excitement grew once they had started with the activity.

They added that they found the game entertaining and educational because it asks questions related to the module and also engages teamwork and group discussion and can also be used as a form of revision test for the exams.

Mkhize has a number of games lined up for the students which he hopes will help them study better and understand their modules. These include a crossword puzzle based on accounting theory; shapes game based on company financial statements and retained income account; word search game based on financial accounting and auditing; hunt for odd and even numbers based on the sale of fixed assets and– isondo (the wheel) based on the conceptual framework for financial reporting.